Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Surely someone who is suffocating must also be suffering. Whence the eggcorn suffercate
Examples:
Can i keep a hamster or hedgehog in a big plastic container.? – Yahoo …
could i keep a hegehog or hamster in one of those would they suffercate if i put the lid on whiile im out btw its the large see through cheap plastic conatiners in hardware stores …
answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090920074501AABK0zh · Cached page
I O T A © 2 0 0 0
For far too long so many of us artist had to suffer under the tyranny and slavery of capital labor. While our creative freedom and expression slowly suffercate.
dankunlimited.com/tv/112000/iota.html · Cached page
The use of Oxytocin during the Whelping of a litter
... up a bit .Everyone of my females are different one has them like a gum ball machine ,the other takes her time and one actually sleeps between contractions :)) Pups only suffercate ...
workingdogs.com/doc0023.htm · Cached page
Google Answers: Fire Extinguishers – what are the best types for car …
Use a pan lid to suffercate the flames, anything flame proof that will stop the air flow, and flames escaping. Wood products, clothing, carpet, etc, use plain water.
answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=111178 · Cached page
dust bowl
I really dont really like doing this kind of this but when I also read about all this neat stuff about how you even had to cover your mouth and nose just so you wouln’t suffercate ...
jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/Weather/PaperProposalArticles/dustbowl.html · Cached page
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Welcome back, Joe. This one works particularly well for non-rhotics and it reminds me of smothercate – they seemed to be used interchangeably in my early years – which lends some support to your interpretation.
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Smothercate is a great word. I guess it would be a portmanteau combining smother and suffocate. That makes me wonder whether suffercate is designed in the same vein. We’ll probably never know which cases are portmanteaus and which are eggcorns.
Smothercate also reminds me of a nonce word I’ve heard before: smuffercate. It has such a cutesy sound to it.
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By calling it a portmanteau do you mean it is a purposeful trope? I certainly agree that it can be. But if it is an inadvertent portmanteau that then becomes standard, or if it becomes standard for others even though its origin was advertent, it would still count as an eggcorn, at least by my lights.
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(Portmanteaux are equivalent to 1-wd blends in this context, are they not? Blends and eggcorns are not disjoint categories.)
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Is it still a nonce word if you’ve heard it twice?
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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Smothercate seems intentional—and a useful portmanteau for those rare occasions when one can’t quite make the distinction between being smothered and being suffocated—particularly if one is using it metaphorically! Suffercate could be either intentional or unintentional, so I think it is sometimes an eggcorn. Though, I do worry that some dialects pronounce an “er” when none is indicated by the spelling.
I can’t figure out the smuff part of smuffercate, so that part seems nonsensical to me. Even though I’ve heard it more than once, I don’t see the logic behind it. I guess it’s not a nonce word if there is some method to it’s madness, or as you point out David, that it’s been heard on more than one occasion.
Last edited by jorkel (2009-10-18 21:25:16)
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I mentioned smothercate because it seemed to support suffercate in the same way that tripli-cate or certifi-cate might. A lot of BrEnglish speakers would pronounce smothercate as smuvvercate, which is close enough, perhaps, to be mistaken for Joe’s smuffercate?
Or, alternatively:
smurficate – 1 definition – 1.When the temperature is so hot outside it takes the breath away resulting in blue-ish tint to face 2. a funny -ass wa…
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=smurficate
You won’t be allowed into the halls with the rest of us, the other vampires would smurficate us. So the only other way of keeping you in Vampire Mountain …
www.fanfiction.net/s/2750398/1/The_Traitors_Followers
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I buy suffercate.
On the other hand, although it is out there, snuffocate looks intentional. Double ditto for snuffercate.
Homebrewing forum
When you fire is ready, place the wood on top/near the edges- spaced so they don’t snuffocate the charcoal. It will still need air to burn.
(http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/1516.html)
Raising reptile food
I figure I only need a lid to keep the cats out…but do the roaches need lots of ventilation? Would it be sufficient to dremel a bunch of little holes in the top, or would I snuffocate them all?
(http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth … enumber=19)
Certainly intentional, but put up here just the same:
letters of Ezra Pound
I should hate to think of him down below thaar, overbarnacled and crusted wiff pearl oysters so’z he’d snuffocate and die of not breathing.
(http://books.google.ca/books?id=cUSD5Yv … te&f=false)
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‘Suffercate’ reminds me that I’ve also encountered ‘stuffocate.’ It’s mostly used deliberately to describe the consequences of excessive materialism- i.e., you suffocate on too much ‘stuff.’ But I’ve also seen a few naive citations:
But later that night, the Ninja’s cousin would stuffocate the Samurai in his sleep.
www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=25738.msg515
i wan to bury myself in my pillow and stuffocated myself to death …
www.singaporebikes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75033..
They paralyze the people however then dont put enough sleep into them therfore making them stuffocate when they put the other fluids into them.
boards.youthnoise.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/455299255/m/.../p/4 – Similar
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